Keeping egg cells in stasis during childhood is a key part of female fertility in humans. New research published online on January 1, 2018 in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology sheds some light on the role of epigenetics in placing egg cells into stasis. A team led by Dr. Gavin Kelsey at the Babraham Institute in the UK and colleagues in Dresden and Munich studied a protein called MLL2 and discovered how it produces a distinctive pattern of epigenetic marks that are needed for egg cell stasis. The article is titled “MLL2 Conveys Transcription-Independent H3K4 Trimethylation in Oocytes.” A fertilized egg cell is the start of every human life. Yet, egg cells are created inside a woman's body before she is born. The eggs are then kept in stasis throughout childhood until they're needed as an adult. If egg cells don't go into stasis they can't become mature eggs and they will never have the chance to form a new life. Putting an egg cell into stasis involves adding many epigenetic marks throughout its DNA. Epigenetic marks attached to DNA act as footnotes, indicating which genes are turned “on” or “off.” The scientists wanted to understand where these marks come from in egg cells and how mistakes can cause disease. It is particularly challenging to study epigenetics in egg cells as there are so few of them. The team had to create new, highly sensitive ways to detect epigenetic marks in such small numbers of cells. Using this approach, they found that, as eggs develop, a mark called H3K4me3 spreads throughout the genome. Scientists have already seen the same mark close to the start of active genes in many cells, but the team discovered that its role in egg cells is different.

A single enzyme. That is all the researchers behind a new study need to manipulate to prevent the feared Ebola virus from spreading. Because with the enzyme they also take away the virus' ability to copy itself and thus produce more virus particles and more infection. The study was published online on December 28, 2017 in Molecular Cell and was conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Phillips Universität Marburg in Germany. The article is titled “The Ebola Virus Nucleoprotein Recruits the Host PP2A-B56 Phosphatase to Activate Transcriptional Support Activity of VP30.” “When the Ebola virus enters the human cell, its only purpose is to copy itself, fast. First, it must copy all its proteins, then its genetic material. But by inhibiting a specific enzyme we rob the Ebola virus of its ability to copy itself. And that may potentially prevent an Ebola infection from spreading,” says Professor Jakob Nilsson from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research. A few years ago, the Ebola virus ravaged West Africa, where thousands of people died from the extremely infectious Ebola infection. Once you are infected, all you can do is hope that your own immune system is able to kill the infection because there is currently no available treatment. However, the researchers behind the new study have found what is called a new host factor for Ebola virus. It can be described as a small part of the host's - for example the human body's - own cells, which the Ebola virus uses to copy itself and produce more infection. The virus uses the host factor enzyme PP2A-B56 to start producing proteins. So, if the researchers switch off PP2A-B56, the virus' ability to copy itself and produce more infection is never “switched on.”